Outland

Outland stands out as one of 2011’s best downloadable games. Once you finish admiring its arrestingly artistic world, which features layers of intricately designed shadowy backgrounds and a hero who looks like a tribal version of a character from Tron, your focus will center on the game's wonderfully enjoyable movement mechanics. Sliding under hazards, leaping between canyon walls, jumping over a series of moving platforms -- everything feels natural and intuitive. Running and jumping is rarely this much fun.

Beyond movement, the game's clever system of earning abilities that permit further progression -- borrowed from games like Super Metroid -- makes for compelling play. Once you earn a new ability, you'll want to search out opportunities to play with it. Then you'll want to keep playing to find the next ability. And we haven't even mentioned the plants that spew glowing pellets in beautiful, intricate, and deceptively lethal configurations (think top-down shooters like Ikaruga). They really put the player’s pattern recognition and timing skills to the test. It’s a sure-fire hit for platformer fans.

Online interaction: This game can be played cooperatively between two players. It supports open voice communication, which means players may be exposed to inappropriate language and topics of discussion, or share personal information.